Weekdays technical writer: from CIS to Strugatsky

In any company that develops software, there are always many tasks associated with maintaining documentation and translating it into different languages ​​(especially if the company is international). In our case, both of these problems are relevant, and the task flow is very significant, so the technical documentation department is under a big burden.

In Positive Technologies, technical writers put their hand to all texts that originate in the company's interior, from highly technical (product accompanying documentation, corporate, industry standards) to highly artistic opus with allusions to the Strugatsky (see the legends of the CTF competition at PHDays 2012). If you want to know how we control the deadlines and the quality of performing such diverse tasks - welcome under cat.

So, to begin with, let's imagine the directions of work on the types of texts and tasks:

• knowledge base;
• documentation;
• standards;
• translation of articles, documentation and standards;
• translations of everything for the Positive Hack Days forum;
• research articles and marketing materials.

Now we will sort each item separately.
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The process of working with the knowledge base

Developing and maintaining the relevance of the XSpider security scanner knowledge base and the MaxPatrol security analysis and compliance system is the most important task.

The procedure in this case is as follows: after the company's experts found the vulnerability and implemented its support with software packages, the technical documentation department receives a notification about the new task: create a description of the vulnerability in Russian and English. The task is assigned to a specific employee, he performs it (creates a description or translation), adds the necessary links, CVC codes to the text, and then commits to the database.

Documentation

Another class of tasks is the creation of documentation for the company's products (XSpider, MaxPatrol, SurfPatrol) - for example, we are constantly working on improving several User Guides and Administrator Guides, as well as translating and supplementing other, smaller documents.

Work with standards

We have to deal with three types of standards.

International standards are developed by international organizations (CIS) or manufacturers of software and hardware and are generally recognized in the field of information security.

After the appearance of such a document, the task of the technical writers is a high-quality and relevant translation into Russian. In the process of translation it is necessary to constantly be in contact with the experts of the research center to clarify various details.

It happens that the standard for a specific software or device does not exist in nature. This happens often, and in such cases, experts at the Research Center of the Positive Research create standards of their own design. The task of the technical documentation department in this case is divided into two: first, the standard should be translated from the “expert” language into Russian :) And secondly, the already adapted version should be translated into English.

After that, the text of the document is sent to the software or hardware manufacturer and added to the knowledge base of Positive Technologies products. Subsequently, the standard often becomes widespread, becoming international.

Transfer

It would seem that you can tell about interesting translation? Take the text and translate what is so complicated. However, the flow of tasks is so great that all routine operations should be automated. In the case of translations, a routine is a translation of similar texts in which the same terms and concepts are found in large numbers. Two translators can translate the same term differently, but in the field of information security this is unacceptable, there is no place for vague definitions: the rates are too high. Therefore, if a term has already been translated by someone once and the translation is approved, then later, when this concept is found in the text, it is necessary to use a ready-made version of the translation. A special translation assistance system ( Trados ) helps in this task.



The source text is loaded into the system, and the translator starts working with it in a separate window. The so-called principle of the memory of translated texts comes into play: Trados remembers fragments or single words so that in the future, when similar words or fragments are found in other texts, they will display the variants of their translation. It seriously helps to unify translations.

Translation for PHDays

As you know, Positive Technologies is the organizer of the Positive Hack Days international information security forum. Since the forum is international, foreign guests from all over the world accept a fair amount. There are speakers, and teams participating in the CTF battle, and independent researchers. One of the tasks of the technical documentation department is maintenance of the PHDays forum.

This task is not an easy one: translating texts on paper and consistently translating speech is, as they say in Odessa, two big differences. But now the second year everything goes by. :)

Of course, the translation of press conferences and master classes, assisting the presenter at the forum itself is just the tip of the iceberg. A huge number of booklets, articles and blog entries on PHDays also fall into the caring hands of our technicians and translators.

Scientific articles and marketing materials

In our Research Center Positive Research, work on finding new vulnerabilities in software of various vendors is conducted day and night. Following the principle of Responsible Disclosure, we notify software vendors about the found vulnerabilities, and only after the vulnerability is closed by the patch, we publish a detailed description of it (advisory).

In the course of systematization of the data obtained in the process of research, experts at the research center generate articles that are published in popular magazines and on well-known Internet sites, both Russian-language (Habrahabr, Hacker magazine) and foreign (for example, Hakin9).

Similarly, a large number of texts appear in the process of solving marketing and PR-problems (positioning the company, coverage of the Positive Hack Days forum) - these are blog entries, notes in social networks, printed promotional materials. All these texts also pass through the technical documentation department.

When working with all texts, it is necessary to take into account various parameters - the priority of the task, the need for translation and editing, and the timing. To do this, we use the TestTrack-based project development project management system, which helps us not to get buried under the endless avalanche of important documents.



In spite of the fact that very few materials are devoted to the topic of developing technical documentation both on Habre and in general on the Internet, it is extremely interesting. If after reading this topic, you have any questions - we will be happy to answer them in the comments. Thank you all for your attention!

PS We are constantly looking for technically savvy, competent people who professionally speak foreign languages. If you want to work in a young, positive team of technical writers and translators - let me know!